NASA brings its history in aviation tech to life in pictures on Aviation Day Firstpost Photos 1

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Commercial Aviation: For commercial flights, NASA developed ‘winglets’ to reduce drag (forces opposing the movement of a plane forward), designed wind tunnels (large tubes with moving air to simulate turbulence) to test aircraft-readiness, ‘grooves’ — thin cuts across concrete runways that act as a channel for water to drain, and software for commercial flights & air-traffic controllers. Image Courtesy: NASA

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General aviation: General aircrafts — including all civil aircrafts except scheduled/paid cargo flights — carry the same NASA tech as commercial jetliners, with a few extras — lightning protection, de-icing systems, and the emergency airbags. The space agency has also contributed real-time weather graph displays and the "Highway-in-the-Sky" system, which allows communication and data-exchange mid-flight with crew on the ground. Image Courtesy: NASA

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Military Aviation: Military crafts have a lot of tech in common with general aircrafts too, plus design and hardware needed for combat — thrust-vectoring, or the ability to change thrust direction to control altitude and angular velocity quickly, ‘swing wings’ that can sweep back and return to position mid-flight, and the components needed for short, vertical takeoffs. Image Courtesy: NASA

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Civil Rotorcrafts: NASA innovations have also found their way to rotorcrafts like helicopters — improvements in aerodynamic safety, transmissions and rotors in civil rotorcrafts, like tech to reduce aerodynamic ‘flutter’ — a dangerous phenomenon that affects flexible structures like rotors, and the aircraft itself — which could destabilize aircrafts and result in them crash. Image Courtesy: NASA

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Tiltrotor Aviation: Also adding to the field of aviation engineering are NASA’s innovations in variable-speed rotors, tilt rotors and proprotors, used in vertical takeoff and landing aircrafts, and lightweight ‘drivetrains’ that deliver power to the driving wheels of the aircraft. Image Courtesy: NASA